Under one of the dark arches—in the same park where I’d practiced with Ruadan—I stood in a line of novices. We were waiting for Grand Master Savus’s arrival to give us the reaping command. The burnt car from last night had stopped smoking and now stood, blackened, among the other rubbish in the archway—old fridges, a children’s plastic shopping trolley. Newspapers, egg cartons, and abandoned sneakers lay strewn around our feet.

And Aengus had promised me a life of glamour among the Shadow Fae.

From what I understood, the incubus nest wasn’t far from here. In fact, somewhere nearby, they’d taken over a nightclub.

Maddan narrowed his eyes at my skimpy clothing—a short skirt, a low-cut silk shirt, and no bra. “Whore,” he whispered.

Fuckwit. I wasn’t going to argue with him, because it served no purpose. He had no idea what he was in for, anyway.

The fae males had no gods-damned clue that they were at a distinct disadvantage for this trial. None of the males had any idea how nightclubs worked in the human realm. They’d never been to a bar, or stood outside trying to get into an exclusive nightclub by showing just the right amount of cleavage. They probably planned to simply waltz up to the door and demand entry. They’d concealed their pointed ears and left the oak leaves at home. But beyond that, they wouldn’t fit in at all.

Melusine and I, on the other hand, were perfectly attired for the occasion. Our skimpy clothing was our ticket into the incubi’s nightclub.

I brushed my fingertips over the misericorde reaping dagger concealed by my side.

If the fae males somehow managed to get into the club, the advantage would shift. Incubus lust magic only worked on females. Melusine and I could possibly end up wildly distracted.

In any case, the most important thing to remember for tonight’s trial was that one stray prick of our daggers would mean an eternity in hell. If we accidentally stabbed ourselves, it was straight to the void forever. And that might explain why the males were a little bit jumpy this evening.

The barguest growled. “Once you get in the club, whores, and sniff that incubus magic, you’ll be rutting like bitches in heat.”

“Are you suggesting that I’m dog-like? You literally transform into a—” I sighed. “Never mind.” Not even worth it. He was an idiot, and he probably wouldn’t survive this task.

The barguest growled again, but the echoing of footfalls in the archway and the thickening of mist cut him short.

Grand Master Savus stepped out of the archway’s shadows, and the novices went quiet. A steady stream of water droplets dripped from above.

I shoved my hand into my pocket, brushing my fingertips over the lumen crystal. Someday, when I was living as a fugitive, the crystal would be mine.

Savus prowled before us. “Tonight, you will be reaping souls in a crowded nightclub. We will be watching to see how you perform. Stealth, efficiency, and discretion will be noted. Commoners fear us, but we do not like to call attention to ourselves more than necessary. If humans become too afraid, they will grow restless. Agitated. Our fragile alliance will crumble. Humans can be so irrational. What’s more, you are novices. You are not Knights of the Shadow Fae. You may not present yourselves as Knights of the Shadow Fae. Tonight, you will disguise yourselves as humans.”

Savus steepled his fingers.

“You all have your lumen stones, yes? Please be aware that these are extremely valuable. Any novice who loses their lumen stone can expect to meet their end with the blade of an iron ax.”

Crikey. I was starting to think the knights were a little overeager to get the iron axes out.

I clasped the necklace around the back of my neck, and my body surged with an icy jolt of shadow magic. Just as Ruadan had instructed, I used the stones beneath my feet to ground the power, channeling the magic evenly. I sucked in a deep, shaking breath as the power imbued my muscles and bones.

Savus crossed to the archway’s opening, pointing to the street that lined the far end of the park. “Find the incubi’s nightclub. Enter discreetly, posing as humans. Reap incubus souls. Remember—we kill in the shadows. And if you don’t remain discreet, you will likely end up dead. We believe many incubi lurk in there, and they will slither from the shadows to slaughter you if they discover your presence. Don’t cause a scene.”

I shot a glance to the barguest, once again convinced he’d die before the night was over. I could not say the thought brought me distress.

“Wait until I issue the command,” Savus cautioned.

Along with the shadow magic in my veins, adrenaline arced through my blood. When I glanced at the other novices, starlight seemed to spark in their eyes. The magic of Nyxobas pulsed through us, just as it did with Ruadan.

The barguest growled low under his breath. Shadows whipped violently around Maddan—the prince—tinging his auburn hair with darkness. A cold night wind rippled over my body, and I drew my dagger from its sheath.

By my side, Melusine was muttering to herself. Enter silently, send them all to hell. Enter silently, send them all to hell. Enter silently, send them all to hell.

Her mumblings, combined with her sweet face, had a deeply unnerving affect.

I turned to Melusine, whispering audibly, “Maddan is probably going to do something stupid, like miss the goat pen altogether.”

Melusine frowned, ready to argue with me that we should miss the goat pen, that the goat was a belligerent monster who’d slam us into the mud repeatedly, worse than the incubi. But I held up a finger to silence her. Understanding dawned on her features, and she laughed a little too loudly. “Haha. Yeah. He’d be just that stupid. Miss the goat pen.”

I stared across the park, beyond the farm, where the streetlights twinkled. With the coldness of the shadow magic chilling me, I wanted their warmth. I longed for light right now.

“Now,” said Savus. “Go forth and reap.”

Shadows spilled through my blood like ink, and I mentally fused with the pool of darkness just before the goat pen. I jumped, zooming through the air and landing softly in the wet grass outside the fence.

The barguest hurled himself into the pen, landing just before the goat, who immediately slammed into him. Of course he was the stupidest one.

Melusine and I were already moving on, jumping beyond the farm, toward the yellow streetlights.

Savus hadn’t told us where to find the nightclub, and that was part of the test. As we moved closer to the main street, I sniffed the air, tuning into the smell of electric magic. It was the lightning-storm smell of night magic and of incubi. As I jumped into a shadowy alleyway on the main street, I homed in on the shadow magic—powerful under the smell of beer, sweat, and rubbish.

Graffitti-covered walls lined either side of a narrow main street. With its streetlights and club signs, there were fewer shadows, but I found them behind a line of food trucks, and by zigzagging across the street into narrow alleyways.

Partygoers staggered down the road, some of them singing loudly. I knew this neighborhood—it was one where everyone went to get completely hammered, and I was quickly realizing that we didn’t need to worry about discretion too much. You could run down this street in a flaming squirrel costume and most people wouldn’t notice.

As I moved, I smelled the mossy scent of fae, and I caught a glimpse of bright red swooping past me.

Dammit. Maddan was getting ahead of me. Oh well. Let him burn himself out. He wasn’t getting into the club, and maybe I could just let him lead me to it.

I tracked his movements to a dark alleyway that cut between two Victorian brick buildings. The prince was right on target, because the scent of incubi grew stronger here. In fact, I could already feel their magic sweeping over my skin in a rush of tingles. Even outside the club, my body was heating. No wonder they’d attracted a long line of human females. It was starting to become clear to me that infiltrating a nest of incubi would be distracting as hell, but at least Ruadan wasn’t lingering around, making it worse with his stupidly beautiful face.

In the alleyway, the humans chatted to each other and toyed with their cell phones. Despite the fact—or perhaps because of the fact—that no sign marked the entrance to the incubi’s club, this was apparently the hottest spot in the city tonight.

Maddan strutted on in front of me, every inch the royal fae. He’d left his oak leaves home tonight, but with his rigid posture and imperious glare, he still looked like a weirdo among the humans.

Getting into the club wasn’t as easy as just shadow-leaping inside. You had to see a spot in order to shadow-jump to it, and a brick wall blocked our entrance—not to mention the two bouncers built like brick shit-houses. We were disguised as humans, but even if we weren’t, the bouncers might not care. In London, nightclub bouncers might be the single group of humans unafraid of spell-slayers.

I glanced behind me, relieved to find that Melusine had followed hot on my heels, spine straight to emphasize her boobs. The girl was smart, even if she literally couldn’t use a sword to save her life.

The barguest and Sea Monster shoved past us. Already, I could see the bouncers scowling at them. No way in hell were these fae males getting inside the front entrance. Unless they wanted to slaughter some humans in front of a crowd, they’d be forced to skulk belowground, trying to find a way in through the sewers.

I hung back a little, so the bouncers didn’t think Melusine and I were with those three twats. From here, I couldn’t quite hear what Maddan was saying, but I’m sure it was something totally normal and human sounding, like, “Maddan, Carver of Enemies, son of Wanktonius of the House of Knob-Endians.”

Whatever he said, one of the bouncers was already shoving him in the chest. I could practically see the steam coming off Maddan. Right now, he was probably considering reaping this bouncer’s soul and just rampaging into the club. Certainly, the barguest’s hand was looking twitchy by his sheathed dagger. If only Savus hadn’t cautioned us to work in the shadows….

“In the shadows,” I whispered loudly.

The barguest turned, snarling. Already, they were fucking up the discretion thing, and I hoped Savus was seeing this.

I took a step closer, until I could hear what Maddan was saying, and just caught the end of, “probably full of whores anyway,” before the bouncer landed a hard punch on his cheek.

All three fae males snarled, before finally mastering themselves. I grinned at them as they skulked past us, dismissed by the bouncers. That was one big “enter silently” fail.

I leaned over to Melusine, whispering, “Time to unleash the holy trinity of nightclub bouncer approval: blogging, boobs, and banging the DJ. Or, in my case, pretending to have banged the DJ.”

She cocked her head, frowning, and blinked her large, brown eyes. She had no idea what I was talking about.

Not a big deal. She’d given me a strawberry, and now she was my plus-one.

I sauntered over to the bouncers, swaying my hips and twirling a strand of my lavender hair around my finger.

“Hey, guys.” For reasons I couldn’t quite explain, I adopted an American accent for this. Maybe Americans were just sexier somehow. “I’m writing a piece for the Hot Nights in London blog. I spoke to someone earlier about coming in to do a piece on your herbal gin and tonics.”

I didn’t have to research that one. Every bar in London—even the shitty one where I’d worked—was doing herbal gin and tonics. In our case, we basically mixed some cheap oregano with Tesco Dry Gin, but an incubus club probably used hothouse cucumbers, freshly farmed rosemary, and a dusting of gold on the rim.

One of the bouncers scowled at me. “You spoke to someone, you said? Who was it?”

“My friend Gary, the DJ. We’re very, very close friends.” I actually did know of a DJ named Gary. I’d never met him, but he played every club in East London. He was something of a legend. “I know Gary” had basically become a password for entrance to any of Shoreditch’s clubs.

“Everyone says they know Gary,” countered the bouncer.

Shit. It was becoming harder these days.

“Yeah, but I actually know him. He’s tall, slouches a lot, wears baggy T-shirts, often smells like spliffs, rambles about government conspiracies, and carries around a bag of records,” I said, describing literally every DJ who had ever existed.

The bouncer nodded, squinting at me as he considered my proposition. “He’s actually very proud of his fitted black T-shirts.”

Okay. Almost every DJ.

“If you know him so well,” the bouncer went on, “what’s he calling himself these days?”

It just so happened that I knew the answer to this, since I’d prepared weeks ago to get into an exclusive club for a “clothes swapping and suds night.” Don’t ask.

“He goes by Gary the Tall, sometimes,” I said. “Also known as Gazza, also known as Gazza Striptease.”

The bouncer shook his head, unimpressed. Shit. Had I forgotten one?

“Right!” I smiled. “Jesus of Gazzareth.”

“All right.” He unhooked the velvet rope, stepping aside.

And point one goes to the ladies.

Melusine smiled at me, and we crossed into a long hallway lit by glowing blue stones embedded into the walls. At the end of the hallway, a silver door blocked our way, carved with the sigil of the Night God: a circle with a dot in the middle—basically a giant tit—next to a crescent moon. These demons weren’t even trying to hide their demonity. They were just throwing it in the knights’ faces. I almost felt a sense of umbrage before I remembered I had no intention of actually becoming a knight.

Before I could grab the door handle, Melusine grabbed my arm. “Enter silently, send them to hell.”